MORECAMBE BAY PARTNERSHIP HEADLANDS TO HEADSPACE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT 2015-2018 Cumbria County Council, The Factory, Castle Mills, Aynam Road, Kendal, LA9 7DE Tel: 015397 34888 TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW © Morecambe Bay Partnership FRONTSHEET INTERVIEW NO: H2H2016.15 INTERVIEWEE NAME/S: Bob Parkinson YEAR OF BIRTH: 1934 INTERVIEWER/S: Sarah Hymas DATE OF INTERVIEW: 10/02/16 LOCATION: Cockerham TRANSCRIBER: Sue Bradshaw Summary of Interview: No of Tracks: 1 (Interviewer begins by explaining how she used to volunteer at the Maritime Museum and she learnt about the oral histories project from there) SH: So, Bob, if you could introduce (clock chimes in background, Bob chuckles) – that's a nice clock isn't it? Is that a small .. BP: It is a grandmother. It is a grandmother? Yeah, mm. So what's the difference between, I thought the grandmother had a round head, no. So what's the difference.. There is different [models] of them Ahhh And then there is a smaller one again which is a grandchild or something .. Oh, is it? So is ... But there it's straight up with a rounded top. Ahhh, so a grandmother is just a smaller version is it? The grandfather, grandmother and grandchild. We had a grandfather when we were at t'lighthouse (chuckles) Did you? Ah, full size! Gosh. And then we had nowhere to put it so it was in my bedroom at one place at the side Yeah (chuckles) Oh my goodness! It was too tall for it Downstairs And there wasn't really room in th'ouse, well it's a bit bigger now in't it, but see everything was in the room, the sink and everythin' was in that room Yeah And at the end the fireplace was t'kitchen range like and where the sink and that was there was a pump in the corner like for pumping the water up out of th'well. (chuckles) Yes, amazing. It's amazing. And you did want to buy it when it came on the market or were you just settled here and happy enough? Yeah, we wouldn't want to go back then like. Yeah, it would be a bit strange, wouldn't it, I guess? Well. I suppose so. We just spent the money on gettin' this how we liked it and then we would have to start again wouldn’t we? (chuckles) Yeah, yeah yeah So it was after there was Jim Newsome they called him, went there. That was the last lighthouse-keeper, was it? Well, yes and no. He officially was the lighthouse-keeper but it had all gone automatic. You know, the bottom one was flashing with gas and the top one was automatic, [inaud] so he just lived there because he worked for the port commissioner and it wasn't [inaud] Ahhh And then when he went there was an agreement grown up when the lighthouses were built about 1848 in't it [inaud] Yeah The ... er they got the land to build the lighthouse off Dalton's estate and Dalton's put a clause on it that they if ever it was finished with as the lighthouse it went after them and anything as had been built on it, that went to them as well. So they claimed a lot back and they let it to err Nicholson err, you wouldn't be from round here then, Nicholson Martin's had electrical business in Lancaster. Oh right And 'e retired and 'e came there did the men, there was quite a lot of years him and another chap lived there for a while and then err, Dalton's put it up for sale after he went and err and then that's when John Gerrard (?) bought Right. I just met .. every so often I meet people and they say, oh when that, I really wanted to buy that when that was for sale. I met somebody just on Sunday ... I can't remember ... She said it was ... I think it was auctioned ... Yeah she said it was in the 90's and it ended up being auctioned so [inaud] it would be on sale quite a bit and never seemed to get anyone and then they auctioned it in the finish. So it didn't sell up quickly then? No, I think they wanted too much for it and I'm not sure whether, I can't remember the time now, but they said it didn't make more at the auction. {chuckles] Oh really? Well it feels right that John Gerrard got it just as somebody who'd been there, the family's been there. When our John was part of the (ph - running?) they was on the farm and Ralph, you know, they farmed all together then in them days before Ralph went to be a teacher. And then his son John got married, John's son, John, and them as died and, er, 'e got the house going down towards Pilling and while this came for sale they wanted it to get nearer back to the farm, you see. 'Cos John was working at the farm at that point? Yeah, yeah and so like he came back there and of course they got permission to build the other house at the thing so that's how it went on from there. Which is quite a bit bigger, isn't it than the lighthouse cottage that house they got on the farm? I haven't been in, yeah whether been in I think a couple of times. Yeah yeah. Cos it's amazing really how many buildings they've got up at Crook Farm, so Mmm, all them old buildin's, chuckles. Yeah. Cockersands Gosh, yeah, I mean, yeah, there is up the old cottages, yeah, look like they have been there forever, so anyway, anyway anyway, we are here to talk about fishing. So what I need you to do, we must keep focussed. Umm, we can always come back. Umm, so, yeah, so I need you to just say your name and sort of who you are in relation to the area and then just what you can remember about any particular fishermen and I'll prompt you with a few questions but you just take it away, Bob, basically, so. Right, er, me name is Robert Parkinson, er, I am 81 year old, 82 shortly (chuckles). Er, I have lived round the area all me life, I was born at the cottage about quarter of a mile away from the lighthouse and in 1946 me father got a job as lighthouse-keeper and And what was his name? Thomas Parkinson. He was Thomas. Yeah, and him and his two brothers used to fish, well actually the family ... you know the house was just up (pauses) towards the caravan site, you know, they did all the house up and they, past Cockersands. When they lived there since 1773 The Parkinson’s have? Yeah, hmm, so I think we must be fairly local (chuckles) and they had always been fishermen and then me father and three brothers was the last fishing family together they was. And then me father got the job as lighthouse-keeper so he couldn't put full- time in fishing with them so they split up and he went on his own, like. And of course he had the lighthouse job and, you know, if he fished with their haaf net for salmon in summer, they cockled and musseled in winter, but when the three brothers were, you know, fishing together, they used to fish for flounder or flukes on the sands. So, what were the brothers names? Er, well, Robert was the eldest and then John and then me father was the youngest like, Thomas he was. So Robert and John carried on fishing as a pair then? Yeah, till they retired, yeah. And they were the ones with the haaf-nets. Well they, erm, they fished, all the lot of them fished with haaf-nets. When me father, when they was all together, when there was the three brothers, two used to fish with the whammel board and their drift netters. Tell me about that? How does that work, the whammel board, I have heard the name. Yeah, Have you never ... they still do it a bit don't they. They might do, I haven't seen, I don't know. They come down the river and they can start at that buoyy, you know, the Devon(?) buoy is (inaud) towards Sunderland Point, you know? Well, they are allowed to fish below there, so what they do when the tide gets down to a certain stage, they come, they throw the end o' the net out and it's about 300 yards long and row across the river paying it out all the time and it drifts down the river and, er every so often they'll pull it in and if they've got on like. And what have they got in there then? Salmon. Salmon. Yeah, salmon's the aim, they're there for salmon like. Yeah, so and they're doing that on the ebb tide then? Yes, hmm. They will drift out on a big tide, you know, it goes out a long way. If they get out as far as Lune Deeps they will before the, have to, before the tide comes like, and then they have ter come back up again. And how many fish might they have caught in there? Oh, well, they might go a week or two with nothing and they might catch twenty in a day (chuckles).